Before joining the Full-time MBA at Vlerick, Diana Czentye’s career had taken her from banking and insurance roles in her native Romania to an entrepreneurial venture in Albania. But it was when she returned to the corporate world as an international leasing coordinator in Hungary that she began to consider an MBA.
“I was working on projects with remote teams – but I also had to work closely with the C-suite,” Diana says. “I wanted to feel more confident navigating that space and advising people at that level – and I knew an MBA would give me the tools to do it.
“Vlerick was recommended to me, so I got in touch with them and met Minna, who was full of energy and positivity. I really liked the spirit of the school and felt I would fit in perfectly.”
When Diana arrived in Brussels, she found she had a ready-made community in her course colleagues – a diverse group of peers from across the globe.
She says: “It was exciting to meet so many new people, and it really broadened my horizons to work with colleagues from all over the world. Exposure to so many cultures made me more culturally aware and able to tackle issues in a better way. In managing diversity, you also learn to recognise different personalities and ways of working – and that you need to give everyone the opportunity to share their expertise.”
It wasn’t just Diana’s peers who made her experience outstanding. “The whole team at Vlerick made my journey not only meaningful but also fun and engaging”, she says. “The faculty are great – very knowledgeable, of course, but open and approachable too. They were not only my teachers and programme managers, but long-term advisors.”
The highlight for Diana was the development journey she went through. “An MBA is a leap towards a new you – both professionally and personally,” she says. “To take the leap, you need guidance along the way. The feedback I got from coaches and peers really helped to shape me as a person, giving me the confidence to show my true self, embrace my strengths and weaknesses and continue on my development path – it was refreshing.
“Going through that journey means that today, I can perform at my highest. To be a good professional, you need to work on yourself. You sell yourself before you sell your knowledge, so you need to be confident about what you can – and can’t – do.”
Before starting her MBA, Diana decided she wanted to move into consulting. “I enjoyed working with remote teams and on big projects,” she says. “And my experiences on the programme helped me confirm that consulting was my next step.
“I decided to focus on strategy consulting. I like to push myself – and I knew this would be a real challenge. I also knew it would give me an opportunity to have a real impact. When you work on strategy, you have a helicopter view of a business, you get to define its future direction. And strategy is industry and subject-agnostic – you can learn so much and keep developing. I had a lot of work to do – the strategy courses pushed me to my limits – but being surrounded by driven and talented people pushes you to keep raising the bar. In the end, I succeeded.”
Diana is now a strategy consultant for Monitor Deloitte in Brussels – and credits the Vlerick network with helping her to secure the role. “I reached out to an alumnus at the company who referred me for an interview,” she says. “The network really does work – and it’s something Vlerick does really well.
“At the start of the MBA, one of my colleagues said he was doing the programme to build his network. At first, I was unconvinced by this… but by the end of the MBA, I knew it would be an important factor in my success.
“I use so many elements from the MBA in my work. The biggest thing is the broader perspective I have of business. You explore all business areas and how they connect – from operations and marketing through to finance. This knowledge is crucial for building strategy and navigating different clients and projects – and I draw on it on a daily basis.
“I would definitely recommend Vlerick and the MBA programme. I learned so much, both professionally and personally. Without the MBA, it would have been a challenge to enter the strategy consulting space.”
Diana’s advice for anyone considering an MBA is to get a good grasp of what the programme entails. “It’s intense and you do need to be dedicated,” she says. “But when you fully embrace the journey and the opportunities for both professional and personal development, you’ll come out a different person – and a better professional – at the end.”
Diana Czentye graduated in 2019.
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